I have a South-Western exposure, need an evergreen (actually, need 2 pairs - for the corners and for either side of the porch) for softening the front corners of the front of my house. Virginia red clay underneath about a foot of turned-over new top soil, with hardwood mulch on top. Can't go over 12 feet in height, or about four feet in width. I have a beautiful mounding blue spruce under each of the 2 windows (which are on either side of the porch). These new shrubs will be the only other foundation permanent plants besides the blue spruce.

Picture: white paint, black-green shutters and a chalky red door, simple concrete steps with black wrought-iron metal railing. Okay, now that all of that is over, please give me any suggestions! I want a retro look, as the house is a simple blocky cottage, 1950s. Symmetry is pretty much mandatory, but want something softening. Nothing fancy please. What say you? Do I need to look at the columnar junipers for the corners? Has anyone lived with columnar boxwoods for awhile?

Try a medium sized arborvitae.Can be kept to whatever size (tall) that you desire by trimming once a year.Nice deep green color all year. Emerald beauty is what I use for hedge. 12 ft tall max with trimming.3 - 4 ft wide.

thank you so much, Kyle - my neighbor says that his deer will bolt over to my yard if I buy Arborvitaes...so I ended up buying "Soft Serve" Chamaecyparis and (I can't believe I bought them but I did!) "Gold Cone" Junipers. I have such a small area - the Gold Cones are on either side of the front steps, then the globe blue spruce, then the soft serves. With all the new choices it is SO MUCH FUN to have more than one answer to gardening challenges! Oh how I wish that deer did not live in our area...I LOVE good ole arborvitaes. By the way, the doggone deer love the tips of my rare ($$$) Japanese Maple, too...

The gold cone junipers look really nice when young, but can tend to splay out as they age, especially from snow loads in winter. I recently replaced older ones and they look nice again. Another word of caution: those bag worms love them, so keep you eyes open for them in summer. They can defoliate a juniper in short order.

Thank you all! I found a web site that had a fancy way of tying up the Gold Cones to avoid that dreaded problem f splaying out. And, thank you up there in B.C. for your thoughts! We've come a LONG WAY from ridding ourselves of the "turnip tree" pest shrub that grew UNDER the foundation...I had a trench that hid my knees (and I am tall) before I was satisfied with the "mission" of taking that thing out. No joke - it had an incredible root system, and the top of the root was kinda turnip-shaped...anyhoo, now I can have some fun!